Dating app changes the game by adding a literal game
People have been playing the game of love since way back, but one dating app is turning finding love into an actual game.
Happn announced Thursday that it's launching a new feature called CrushTime. It’s an addictively simple little game that’s meant to give you a fun new way to find potential matches. It’s currently being tested in Spain and will be rolling out globally throughout the summer (first on Android and then on iOS).
CrushTime is meant to add another layer of chance into an app that already is based on helping you connect with people who you happen (hence, the name) to cross paths with IRL. It works by showing you four different profile pictures of people you’ve recently been near.
AdultFriendFinder — readers’ pick for casual connections
Hinge — popular choice for regular meetups
One of them will be a person who's already liked you, and you have to guess who it is. It can lead to an exciting little internal struggle about whether you should pick the person you hope liked you or the person you think actually did.
If you guess right and you’re interested, you can connect right then. If you’re wrong, you can either try again (assuming you’re into any of the other three remaining choices) or start a new game. You have to have at least 10 people like your profile before you’re eligible to play CrushTime, so for most people that means it’ll be potential dates you’ve crossed paths with in the last day or two.
But here’s the catch: you can’t decide when you want to play this game. It just appears in your app. Claire Certain, Head of Global Trends, Communications & Media at happn, told Mashable, “It happens by chance. When it comes you have to take it.”
CrushTime is the fifth feature happn has added recently. The others are "See You There" (which lets you arrange quick dates), "Voice" (which allows you to send 60 second audio clips), and integrations with Instagram and Spotify. And it's all part of a continued push to grow worldwide -- they currently have 33 million users in 40 countries and have recently expanded into India.
Dating apps in general have begun to feel increasingly like games -- especially the swipe based that many users use more for a quick ego boost or just a way to kill time -- but happn's founder and CEO Didier Rappaport told Mashable they're going for something different.
He insists he is firmly anti-swipe. As he explains, “We are talking about a human being behind the picture. When you are able to remove it just by a move your hand, to throw it you transform a human being into an object.” His aim is to connect real people.
So while CrushTime may be an actual game, the point is not to turn the process of dating itself into a game. Instead, as Claire Certain said, “It’s a new way to engage." Since users won’t always see everyone on their timeline because they’re not on the app all the time this can bring people into the mix that you might have missed before.
Whether it's addictive enough to hook people in and change the dating game in any real way remains to be seen.
Cassie Murdoch is Mashable's Culture Editor.. Before coming here, Cassie was Senior Culture Writer at Vocativ. She previously wrote for Jezebel and The Hairpin. Cassie spends most of her time thinking about and consuming cheese in all its glorious forms.
